BlockChain Scalability problems

  • Nice Summary on Wikipedia
  • E.g. Bitcoin can only process around 7 transactions (tx) / sec.
  • Limited by block size
  • Hard fork like Bitcoin cash to increase the block size.
  • Soft fork like Seg Wit (both old and new nodes can still run on the same blockchain)
  • “Layer 2” systems like Lightning Network
    • creates channel on the worker nodes to send payments
    • if users don’t follow the channel payment, penalty is that the payment will be lost.
    • when channel closes, the final transaction will be broadcast to the chain.
    • Seems to work, but so far low adoption. (Since 2018, 3 years)

Theta Network

  • Watch TV (has to be in a website within their network… Their website experience is not as good as Youtube), then you become a node in CDN and then you earn TFuels (their unlimited token, i.e. subject to inflation).
    • They have a non-inflation (fixed total number) token called Theta token, which governs the issurance of Tfuels (also PoS).
  • Steve Chen (Youtube co-founder, ex-Paypal) is an advisor - doesn’t seem to be an investor.
  • Theta TV Link

DeFi (Decentralized Finance)

  • MakerDAO: lending platform, pegged to US dollar.
  • Smart Contract for enforcible terms..
  • Current stage: open source code can be copied, getting competitors easy..
  • Not compliant with KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti- Money Laundering).
  • Collaterol requirements for “virtual” stock trading not required (for now?)

Non-fungible token (NFT)

  • Here is a very good intro article by verge
  • It only applies to digital production for now, not for physical assets
    • Even for digital production, there is no inherent way to prevent an author from e.g. put exactly the same art work in two different URL’s, and then sell the two exact the same copy to two different buyers.
  • Most current NFTs are in Ethereum blockchain.